Curiosity killed the writer.

Lesbians and the internet.

2008-02-27T15:50:00.000-08:00

-sigh-...as if I don't get it enough on XBL playing Halo:

Because Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are Sexy.

2008-01-10T07:05:00.001-08:00

Top Lesbian Moments in Gaming.

2008-01-04T22:13:00.000-08:00

As a little girl playing Mortal Kombat II I would often think "Why all the fighting, why can't Kitana and Jade just kiss and make the world a better place." I realized that while its okay to shoot hookers in the head, run over police, kill zombie dogs, have sex with two women at the same time by pressing a set of buttons, it was not cool to have lesbian characters. Well, it's now 2008, and the lesbian community doesn't have any out-of-the-closet lesbian characters, we got them ambiguous types and those we wish were gay.

When I first got my my XBox 360 there were three games I wanted; Halo 3, Mass Effect, and Assassin's Creed. All containing some lesbian references.

Halo:

So I'm play Halo 2 and whose voice do I hear; Michelle Rodriguez. Seriously I'm pretty sure almost every lesbian I know has had a crush on her (who wouldn't after seeing her in the ring, or kick some zombie dog ass?). Whether or not Michelle is gay or not, who cares ( she probably is though, how many white tank tops can a straight girl own). Not only was Halo 2 an awesome game, but hearing Michelle's voice every once in a while telling me reinforcements were coming was pretty cool. Plus, she can reinforce me any day. Here's an article about her history of video games.

Mass Effect:

This game was banned in Singapore. Why, you ask. Because there is a lesbian love scene. HOLY CRAP STOP THE PRESS. I haven't seen anything this straight forward lesbian in a game since I was playing Final Fantasy and confused one of the androgynous-looking guys for a girl.

Assassin's Creed:

Tell me a lesbian who doesn't think Kristen Bell is cute. Really, try. I bought Assassin's Creed cause it was one of the most hyped-up games of 2007, and it didn't hurt at all the Kristen Bell has a pivotal role in the game. Without giving too much away, let's just say that when I finished the game I thought, "There's gonna be a sequel and KB should be the main character."

Jade Empire:

I never had the chance to play Jade Empire because when it first came out I did not own an XBox but instead a PS2, so there's not really much I can say except for this simple math equation; lesbians+kung fu= awesomeness.

Notice how it fades out in the end when they're going for the kiss. Apparently when you play as the male character you get to the see the whole think. What happened to equal opportunity folks!?

Here's a video containing some more lesbian moments. (Thought you can tell that some of theme are clearly for the male gaze)

*Note that you can see the full girl-on-girl kiss in the Jade Empire game. This is because the kiss was only shown on the PC version of the game, which came out at a later time

GamesRadar also has the top 7 girl-on-girl kisses here.

I'm just a girl.

2008-01-01T18:00:00.000-08:00

XBox Live...and oh yeah, the internet in general pisses me off.

A regular day on XBL consist of;

"Are you a girl."
"Yes."
"Girls don't play Halo."

or

"WTF that's so gay, you have pink armor."

But realizing that most XBL gamers are boys who sound like girls I simply ignore the fact and continue the game. I'm not gonna let them get to me.

Now, I'm a regular used of Digg and when there's an article regarding a girl gamer, some dumbass usually posts a comment that consists of :

"Inaccurate. Girl gamers do not exist."

Sarcasm or not it bothers me. In my Women's Studies class we were taught that there are two types of racism. Active and passive. Active refers to the blatant obvious racism and passive refers to those who neither encourage or stop racism. By active passively they perpetuate the status quo. (White man is still dominant.)

This also applies to male gamers. We have active and passive sexists.

I want to bring up Jade Raymond, the producer for the game Assassin's Creed.

In November, someone posted a comic (not posting it out of respect) which depicted Jade performing sexual acts to male gamers in an attempt to buy and play the game. UbiSoft slapped a lawsuit on Something Awful (the forum who posted the comic) and in response you had male gamers retort with her being a "bitch" and the only reason she was used was for her sex appeal. Yes, let's just ignore the fact that she has a degree in computer science and has worked for EA and has programmed games for Sony.

I don't see the big deal about her being the face of this game, she has the right to be. What Jade Raymond did for Assassin's Creed is what Frank O'Conner did for Halo and Gabe Newell for Half Life 2.

Anyways, who bought the game because of Jade Raymond? I bought because it was a good game and had nice reviews.

But you know what...it's because a male is threatened by a beautiful competent female. Miyuki Jane, a blogger from Game Girl Advanced writes:

"It is dangerous to be a beautiful woman in the games industry. Oh, it's difficult to be a woman, period. But if you also happen to be attractive, you are doubly cursed. On the one hand, yes, when you're at a conference where you are among a handful of women, you are remembered, and that is advantageous. But for every break you may get for being female and attractive you get a chorus of voices telling you that you don't deserve it because, well, you are attractive, and obviously you can't possibly have gotten where you are without seducing men along the way. And I am devastated to say that sometimes joining in those voices are other women.

And then on the other hand you have groups that want to use you because you are beautiful - whether its the marketing machine, PR, the press - it's all a form of exploitation, honestly. And while men like Cliffy B and Will Wright are also pimped out to move product, they don't suffer from quite the same sexually tinged commentary that comes with being the female spokesperson for a product.

It's disgusting. And distressing. And depressing."

There's also Morgan Webb.

'[Jade Raymond] made a great game. Yeah, people can be mean. That made me mad, because she’s so nice. But I mean, that’s the thing, you’re just not going to be left alone. Like I’ve gotten so many horrible e-mails, I don’t even want to read them anymore. But that’s just being on TV. They don’t think that you’re really a person. They just write you. Sometimes I would write people back and go, “You kiss your momma with that mouth?” And then they go, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think you read these e-mails.” And I’m like, “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” But I think that’s a problem with anybody in the public eye. I don’t think that necessarily has anything to do with women in games. I think it’s just you obviously don’t exist because you’re — I don’t even want to use the word “famous” for myself but… known.

Here’s the thing: 99.9 percent of people are awesome and cool and fine and normal, and there’s the 0.1 percent of people who are morons and chicken-s–t a–holes, and they ruin it for everybody. And that sucks because I do not read fan e-mail because 0.1 percent of people ruin it for everybody, and I don’t read forums because 0.1 percent of people ruin it for everybody. And it would be really great if I could go on a forum and talk to people who like the show and talk about games, but I can’t because there’s some 14 year-old jerk somewhere who just wants to be an idiot and try and get attention. And then you can’t engage them because if you give them attention, then they win. And it’s really unfortunate, and I wish that weren’t true but that’s the nature of the Internet; everybody gets a voice whether or not they deserve one, and I think it’d be great to get some sort of verification system so people could take ownership of their names and reputations. I think that situation, there could be some really interesting conversations. Until that day, I stay away."

Did I mention I like Star Wars?

2007-12-12T21:10:00.000-08:00

...Did I mention I like hot women in gold Bikinis more?

Taken from Dorothy Snarker over at AfterEllen.com

Olivia Munn and Morgan Webb

2007-11-09T10:31:00.000-08:00

I would like to dedicate this post to the awesome women of G4, they are every nerds fantasy.

Pencils Down.

2007-11-06T17:01:00.001-08:00

What do;

30 Rock,

The Office,

and Conan O'brien have in common?

Answer; Shows who have been affected by the writer's strike.

While I completely support the writers, I just don't know what I'm going to watch after the already shot episodes of these shows air. I'm not much of a repeat type of gal!

The writers are on strike because they don't get revenue from DVD sales or internet downloads, but producers do. That's enough reason to strike. (It really glorifies that image of the poor writer, even if you're a Hollywood writer)

What I'm most worried about is some shows getting canceled (30 Rock was on the brink of cancellation last season) and being replaced with (wait for it) REALITY TV. Reality TV is the guilty pleasure of today's TV age so there is a good chance of it filling up the airwaves.

Guess I'll watch my L Word DVD's for now.

Mainstream curiousity killed the bisexual.

2007-10-13T21:11:00.000-07:00

By now I'm sure some of you have heard of the reality show "A shot at love with Tila Tequila". If you haven't the basic jist of it is this; there's 16 men AND women who vye for Tila's love.

Oh joy, lesbian visibility. Equality! Groundbreaking! Entertaining!

um, no...

Everytime someone asks me if I'm going to watch the show I reply with "-sigh-, I dunno" and I really couldn't articulate why but fortunately for me, my LGBT class helps me put words to my perspective.

What I don't like about the show is that it puts a definite line between masculinity and femininity. It puts sexuality into a binary system. It's obvious that this show is not at all targeted towards an LGBT audience. It's like a "lesbianism for beginners" show. It only portrays the lesbians as being the femme-type. There were two butch girls on their but they were immediately kicked off.

We live in a social patriarchy, without a doubt. And to men (I speaking in generalized terms here) a "real woman" is a sex object. So in turn, the butch woman, since she is not considered a sex object by men she is not a real woman, and it's cool for men to call them butch, dyke, lesbo, if they see the femmes on the show call them that.

BTW RED SOX JUST WON!!!!

5 female-fronted bands you probably never heard but you should have.

2007-10-12T06:58:00.000-07:00

Saying I'm a big fan of female-fronted bands is a bit of an understatement. I love them. Part of me is still stuck in the 90's-era girl power mood created by the Spice Girls (I am never ashamed to admit that I love them). With radio gone mainstream it's difficult to find a station with female-fronted bands. I mean, how many times do we have to hear "Hey There Delilah" or "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger?"
Fortunately with the help of a cassette adapter and my iPod I can listen to what I want, and by I want I mean these 5 female fronted bands in no particular order.. (Thank God for iPods otherwise if I still listened to C.D's, they'd be scratched from how many times I've played them.)

When I first heard Flyleaf was a Christian band I was turned off by them even though I had never heard any of their songs. Once I listened to their EP I was immediately a fan. Lacey Mosley's voice is hauntingly sweet. She has a very soft voice but can at the same time do that rocker scream you would expect from hardcore metal bands. Each of their songs has a message. Even if you're not religious you are bound to relate to their music, after all I did! You can listen to some of their songs on their myspace. Definitely listen "Fully Alive" and "All Around Me" to hear Lacey's voice in action.

You know when you're bored and you go on Myspace and click through people's top friends to see where they lead to? That's what I did when I was on Evanescence's myspace and clicked on Stefy. I was drawn to their song Chelsea and thought it sounded strangely familiar. I then realized that they had sampled the popular Eurythmics song "Sweet Dreams". They're definitely not afraid to use synthesizer in their songs.. Give C'helsea" and "Fool for Love" a listen.

When I think of indie college music Rilo Kiley comes to mind. Maybe it's because I first heard them on the MTVU playlist but nonetheless they are awesome.
Quite possibly the best band name I've ever heard; Morningwood. Morningwood's music is the type that makes you take of your clothes and run around naked in your room singing their songs. I first heard of them when their song "Nth Degree" was featured on a commercial for the gay network Logo. I was hooked on that song and I wanted more. The logical place to look was on myspace and their I discovered the rest of their music. Each one of their songs is perfect for any activity that you do. Give "Jetsetter" and "Nth Degree" a listen.
So I first heard of Killola when their music was featured in an awesome lesbian-noir short series Girltrash. A modern-day Blondie for the era. Killola is definitely a band you you have to listen to if you want to let your hair down and with your brush disguised as a microphone just thrash in front of the mirror. I should warn you that if you listen to them on public transportation you are bound to get strange looks from passenger for you random head banging (trust me). Lisa is definitely reminiscent of Debbie Harry and certainly brings all her girl power into the bands' songs. They did have their first album for free on their myspace but you should check to make sure. Give "Barrel of Donkeys" a listen.

Happy National Coming Out Day!

2007-10-11T13:32:00.001-07:00

I think Diana Ross put it best when she sang

"I'm coming out, I want to the world to know, I've got to let it show."

Coming out is such an important and it's great that there's a day acknowledging it. We live in a world today where homosexuality is slowly become more socially acceptable. Turn on your TV and most networks have gay males in their shows. (Ugly Betty, Brothers and Sisters)
It's a shame though that lesbians have absolutely no visibility on network tv at all. Those who have cable are fortunate enough for shows like The L Word and South of Nowhere.
I can't wait for the day lesbianism will stop being eroticized.

Well in honor of Coming Out Day here is one of my favorite coming out scenes.

Smart girls are Hot.

2007-10-08T21:47:00.000-07:00

So I figure since I'm not a blogger at Simmons it doesn't mean I should stop blogging now.

Anyways, has anyone ever been attracted to intelligent females? I for one love when I can get into an intellectual conversation with someone of any sex, but it's so damn sexy with a girl. Yes I love girls who know calculus or can quote Emerson. How about smart celebrities?
The Celebrity Top Blog has a list of the hottest smart girls in Hollywood, and I just have to agree with them.

A Harvard Graduate.

A Yale graduate. (and on of my favorite lesbians on the L Word)

Kate Beckinsale in anything is just about enough to make my jaw drop. But Beckinsale in Oxford with degree in Literature. Have my babies.

Others mentioned were Elizabeth Shue and Natalie Portman. Elizabeth went to Wellesley (the school I was regrettably rejected from) and Natalie of course went to Harvard. ( Where she smoked weed everyday.)

Going on Strike

2007-08-23T13:48:00.001-07:00

Until I find out whether I get the chance to be a Simmons blogger or not, Im going on strike cause I will be ROYALLY PISSED if I am not a blogger.

How much do you pay attention?

2007-08-11T23:14:00.000-07:00

You're a driver.
You pay for gas.
You can not believe that gas is $2.77 a gallon.
You go inside the gas station and decide to cool off with a 16oz $1 bottle of water.

You have spent more on that water than on gasoline. Think about it.

I'm sure most of my readers (okay all two of you) know math.
So there's 128 oz. in a gallon of water. 16 goes in 128 8 times. 1 x 8= 8. That means $8 for a gallon of water.

Just thought I'd let you know :)